1974 Topps Washington National League: 15/15
Not really DC cards but the rumors of the time that the San Diego Padres were going to move to DC were so believable and the deal was so close to actually happening in late 1973 during the off season Topps produced 15 Padres cards marked as "Washington Nat'l Lea. They then corrected those cards with the "Padres" versions. (I have both sub-sets.)032b Johnny Grubb RC053b Fred Kendall077b Rich Troedson102b Bill Greif125b Nate Colbert148b Dave Hilton173b Randy Jones RC197b Vicente Romo226b Washington Nat'l Team241b Glenn Beckert (In Cubs Uniform)250b Willie McCovey309b Dave Roberts364b Cito Gaston387b Rich Morales

1961 Post: ?
Looks like I'll have to get the Twins cards (91-100) cause all the players seem to be in Senators caps/unis from 1960 season. Other than that it doesn't seem they made any "Washington" cards.

*O Pee Chee cards generally parallel the Topps issue, but some years they didn't match up exactly so some of these lists will be off. The Trading Card Database only has two 1965 OPCs listed even though there are a few more. A few other years they are missing some OPC cards. For 1968 they are missing the Topps Game Inserts.

13 December 2013

In the before my time category we have a 1954 Bowman Baseball card. Now This card is one of five 1954 Bowman Senators cards that I had gotten from Ebay some 6 or more years ago as a five card lot. I have since forgotten how much I paid for them and since getting them I have only gotten one more 1954 Bowman Senators card of the 14 from that year. I have other '54 Bowman's for a total of sadly only 8 cards.

1954 Bowman Baseball 104 Frank Shea Senators

(Front and Back)

I really should show those other 5 Bowman Senators sometime, well when I eventually get the rest of the Team Set I will post the full thing.

11 December 2013

Man oh man oh man. I really gotta get off my duff on this project (and a bunch of other projects in my life). Just about every team card collector at some point needs a complete listing of the cards they need to complete a team set. I'm looking for the basic base sets here, not necessarily the master sets. I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

Of course the much older vintage team sets will be very difficult if not impossible to get, but I think a reasonable goal would be to at least get all the team sets from 1950 to 1971 for the Senators and for the Nationals 2005 and up. The main goal will be the flagship Topps, and Bowman sets when applicable. For the Nats I'm not sure about trying Upper Deck and Panini or whoever else has been in the game these last few years. Of course I will try getting Senators cards from before 1950 but I doubt I will be able to complete too many of those earlier sets.

I am working on a "Page" for my team set needs. On that page I am listing the sets by year with a tally of the cards I have from that set (ex. 10/12). My first few posts will be general decades, and then as I complete sets or get closer to completion I will post about them individually. My 1950s Team Sets List Post is almost ready to go.

1959 Topps 397 Washington Senators Team Card

One of my sources for compiling these lists is The Trading Card Database. It isn't completely flawless, but it thankfully helped me with a big portion of the listing.

23 November 2013

I had previously stated in my very first "Senators Singles" post that the card I was showing then was my oldest Washington Baseball card. At the time I started composing that post it was true, but while I was dilly dallying and just outright procrastinating on scanning that card I went on a spending spree on Ebay. I got a bunch of stuff mostly cards that had FREE Shipping.

This "new" Oldest card might not be the absolutely oldest Washington Baseball card available, but it is currently the oldest I have and will probably hold that title for a while longer. It is a 1933 Goudey Gum card number 122 Alvin Crowder.

Alvin learned to play baseball while in the army during World War I and was nicknamed "General" after Major General Enoch Crowder who was best known for starting the Selective Service Act of 1917. Alvin was a pitcher who had a 10 year career in the Majors with The Senators, The Browns and The Tigers. Alvin was also known as "Yankee Killer" for his success against the Yankees especially Babe Ruth.

22 November 2013

A few Frankly Fridays ago (Months and months in "real" time) I had shown some reprints of 1950s era cards including the 1991 Topps Archives 1953 Reprints.

Well I have since purchased the originals of the Two Washington Franks that are represented in that Topps Archives reprint set Frank Campos and Frank Shea. I think I will eventually get the rest of the Archives set someday since getting an original set would be difficult and costly, right now I just have the Senators "team set"from that reprint set.

So I went on a sportlots spending spree splurge that included these two Original Franks (and some Ed Brinkman cards I needed among others). I got these two from two different sellers. My complete order had about 15 different sellers in all. Anyway these two cards arrived on consecutive days a Tuesday and Wednesday. The costs Campos $4.00 + 0.85¢ shipping and Shea was $3.00 + $1.40 shipping (with 3 other cards that I'll probably blab er blog about sometime later on my CaptKirk42 Card Blog.) Shea arrived first on the Tuesday mailday.

1953 Topps 51 Frank Campos Senators

Original (Front and Back)

1953 Topps 164 Frank Shea Senators

Original (Front and Back)

The immediate differences between the originals and the reprints is; SIZE the Originals are slightly larger than the standard card size the reprints are standard 3.5" x 2.5", SURFACE FINISH the reprints have a clean glossy finish on both sides, and on the back the Originals are the raw gray/brown card color while the reprints are pure white (with the gloss finish) Other than that the content of both is the same excepting the reprints updated copyright info format.

18 November 2013

This is the first post of what will hopefully be a regular series feature that will at least make this blog more active, and give me more work to do on it. I don't plan on making these too wordy just something that gives me more opportunities to show off more of my Washington "Curly W" Baseball Cards. It is also a good way to build up a bunch of "filler" posts for whenever I need to make a post but don't have any subject matter in mind.

If you follow enough team specific card blogs you will notice that many of them have a "card of the day" or "card of the week" feature. Some of those blogs are the feature. I don't think I'll ever get that enthusiastic for the daily route, it is hard enough for me to keep up regularly for weekly features. Hopefully I'll do this often enough to make most people think it is done more often.

Some of the cards I show for this feature might be repeats of cards previously shown and maybe sometimes cards shown here will get repeated in another feature. Who knows? It is all good anyway.

I don't recall which Senators card was my very first Washington Baseball Card or Curly W Card so I'll just have to show the card that (for now) is my oldest CWC in terms of its age not necessarily how long I've had it.

1950 Bowman 144 Al Evans Senators

(Front and back)

I was going to just mention that I think I got this card from Ebay a while back and leave it at that, but I went ahead and dug into my TCC blog* and found the entry working backwards from the oldest entries to the newest, I would have saved a few minutes starting the other way since I had gotten this card last year. I got it on Monday 14 May 2012 from Ebay as I said, and I only paid $4.75 + $1.00 shipping.

UPDATE: This card no longer my oldest CWC I recently got some cards from Ebay including an even older card from the 1933 Goudey set.

*My TCC blog I have been using as a card "mailday blog" for sometime now. I also duplicate the entries over at TCZ in my CaptKirk42's Mail Bag posts on their "Mail Days" board. The duplication came in handy over the weekend of 25-27 October 2013 when the TCC site was down. I do need to backup my entries in case both sites go down permanently.

08 November 2013

CONGRATULATIONS to Ian Desmond for winning the 2013 Silver Slugger Award (for Shortstop). This is Ian's second Silver Slugger Award two years running. Yeah Buddy!

The card shown is a 2010 Topps National Chicle Autograph card NCA-ID Ian Desmond Nationals signed on card blue sharpie. The image is from COMC.com I have this card in my collection I just haven't gotten around to scanning it. Oh here is what the back looks like:

18 October 2013

Christopher of Nachos Grande El Bloggo is hosting a contest
that sounds like real fun. I entered and due to the nature of the
contest slots could fill up real fast so check it out and sign up now.
It is one of those participation ones, not a trivia answering or random
card choosing. One requirement is you need to have a blog, or start one
for the contest.

11 October 2013

I have mentioned this gem from my collection before on my regular card blog but oddly not on here. I thought I had but apparently not. Some of this FF post will be a repeat.

This nice oddball gem was actually my first purchased graded card (received 15 December 2009 for $10.00). Actually it is my only purchased graded card as the other two I have were gifts, well it's more card plus memorabilia because it is a 1971 Milk Duds Baseball FULL BOX Frank Howard Washington Senators Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) Graded EX-5 The Milk Duds set is unnumbered. Alphabetically this is card #9 (69 in the set)- PSA slab has it marked #1 - the # 1 on the box is for the box code not the card number as all the boxes seem to be numbered 1.

When I was a Kid I had some of the Milk Duds cards, I don't recall which ones. I probably got rid of them because they were "hand cut" and thus "destroyed", or my mom did the stereotypical "threw them out". She did that more so with my oldest brother. Little did I know back then, whenever that was, that I would later like to get some more of these in the Complete Box. Not necessarily graded versions. Due to prices of these things, especially the big stars I can't afford to get all of them in graded form.

29 September 2013

Well we all gotta start somewhere, managers don't appear out of thin air, well maybe the first few dozen when baseball was in its infancy. Most of them did some time in the trenches way back when. The Nats current skipperDavey Johnson began his major league career as a player starting with the Baltimore Orioles. He played from 1965-1978, then in 1984 began his managing career starting with the New York Mets. It has been announced that the 2013 season will be his last, he is the current oldest active manager at age 70, but not the oldest ever.

Anyway here is how he looked 47/48 years ago when he was a Rookie.

1966 Topps 579 Orioles 1966 Rookie Stars:

Frank Bertaina, Gene Brabender and Dave Johnson

(Front and Back)

For those who like to hear about these things I got the card form Ebay for $7.99 + $1.95 shipping, actually this card has an interesting story of how I got it. First the Seller didn't mark it as shipped so I didn't know it was in the mail yet and wasn't sure when it would come. It came as part of a 3 package day (well 1 box, 1 package, 1 typical sportslot PWE but whatever) this came in a small 100ct card box. I didn't recognize the address and it felt real light so I knew it wasn't from one of my recent group breaks I was in (the package was some group break cards). Of course the box had tons of clear postal tape around it at first I tried just pulling it, but got a little tired and cut some of the tape away. I open the box, I really hate those small 100ct boxes because I think the opening should be on the wide side not the narrow side. Anyway there is a bunch of wadded up newspaper Sunday Comics actually and off to the left side one lone card in its penny sleeve. With a business card advertising some baseball related book from I guess the seller.

I am timing the publishing of this post to appear at noon eastern time on the day of the final game of the regular season, which is a late Sunday afternoon game in Arizona. At the time I write this the Nats are still under .500 by two games, 14 games behind Atlanta and about 8 games back in the wild card race. I'm just hoping they can finish the season at or slightly above .500. at 82-71 YAY a WINNING SEASON. They are about 8 games back of Atlanta and 5 back in the Wild Card for the second WC. They most likely will not be in the playoffs. And they didn't make the Playoffs thanks to their loss to St. Louis with 5 more games to go in the season. So much for pre-season expectations. At 84-73 (+5 more games to play) at least they have their second consecutive Winning Season.

13 September 2013

I think the first card I'm showing in this post was one of the first "dual autograph/signature" cards I ever got, or maybe not. It may have even been the first time I got an "on-sticker" auto card. I don't recall. It was almost certainly one of the first Frank Howard autograph cards I ever got. Anyway at the time I got the first one a few years back the National player featured was one of my top five Nats players, since then there have been a few more players who have come and gone so my top five looks much different and probably has more current players on it.

So in 2005 one of the zillions of Upper Deck sets was called Reflections and an insert set consisted of dual autograph cards and some parallels of those dual auto cards. As with many autograph cards they are "on sticker" not on the card itself, I of course prefer the on card. Many of the pairs don't make sense to me anyway, but this pair is a pair of Washington Sluggers. Frank Howard and Nick Johnson. There are a few other combinations with both these players one is Frank with Dave Kingman of the Cubs and another combo is another Nats combo of Nick with Chad Cordero. I plan on getting those someday.

The base card of this pairing I think I might have actually gotten from a group break, I don't really recall. The second card the Blue Parallel I got from Ebay for a decent price $10 or less. I don't have the patience to look up how much I got if for exactly even though it was only earlier this year or maybe late last year. So without further adieu here are the two cards.

Update Edit: OK so I did look a little to see how much I paid for the Blue Parallel only $8.00 + $2.50 shipping (technically a little more than $10 that is because I had to outbid someone to win LOL). Oh and it was received 25 May this year.

24 August 2013

Thursday 22 August 2013: Chicago: Kurt Suzuki and Drew Storen celebrate 5-4 win vs Cubs after 13 innings in what would be Kurt's final game as a National.

Say What? The day after beating the Cubs 5-4 in a 13 inning game the last of a four game series that Nats took 3-1, The Nats Trade catcher Kurt Suzuki BACK to the Oakland Athletics, the team they got him from last year. I am shocked. Kurt helped the Nats with his hitting and excellent catching last year for their fantastic season that got them a small taste of what the Playoffs are like. I know that super Suzuki fan and blogger Fuji of The Chronicles of Fuji is overjoyed with the trade. The Nats get some minor league right handed pitcher I have NEVER heard of Dakota Bacus. The way he's been pitching lately I would rather that the Nats had traded their closer Rafael Soriano than Kurt. Soriano has been lazy of late, he seems to not really care about the game(s) at all. He has a tendency to loose a large lead blowing the save and often walking the winning runs. I am not pleased with this deal.

22 August 2013

Friday 16 August 2013: Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves the game would end up a 3-2 win for Atlanta, however that is not what I'm ranting about here. This rant is about this:

And This: (OK I couldn't find the right type of picture I was looking for exactly)

Yep Braves pitchers beaned Bryce Harper with a pitch twice in one game and with the second hit (at 91 mph) the fans in the stands CHEERED! YES That is right THEY CHEERED THAT A BATTER WAS HIT WITH THE BALL! Very CLASSLESS Braves fans. I just wish the Nats had bounced back and beaten the tar out of the Braves. OH Well Next Year, without any hijinks.

Now it is one thing to boo an opposing player as he steps up to bat, as the fans did each time Harper took the plate, but to CHEER his getting hit with the ball? What if it had been a freak pitch that knocked his helmet off, or smashed it, and gave him a concussion or killed him? Fans should NEVER cheer when an athlete is injured. Braves fans you are sick, sick, sick, SICK, I hope your team loses whatever playoff games they get to this year.

I noticed that a Red Sox pitcher got ejected from a game and suspended for five games for beaning Yankees Alex Rodriguez with a pitch. Oh and on Saturday's Nats-Braves game (the night after this Hit Harper Game) Stephen Strasburg gets ejected for pitching "behind" a batter, not even hitting him, and these Braves pitchers got NO punishment? Come on MAN the second pitcher should have at least been ejected on the spot, but no this year the Braves are the MLB's perfect little darlings.

17 August 2013

I know this is a few days almost a week late, but it is Nats News. On Sunday 11 August 2013 in the final game of a three game home series vs. The Phillies, Nats ace starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg went the distance to win his first career complete shut out game 6-0. The Nats swept the Phillies, only their fifth sweep of the season, the last being in early July vs. The Padres.

2012 Topps Heritage Baseball 221 Stephen Strasburg Nationals

Congrats Stephen! I won't give the game details since I didn't see the entire game and this blog is more about cards not team news, but I do have some links at the end of this post to articles on the game (plus one article on Stras in general).

16 August 2013

OK so I missed last week and this week is only a one card Frankly Friday. Not much to tell about how I got the card, it came from Ebay (Buy It Now I think not auction) $1.30 plus $2.99 shipping. I forget what it was delivered in I didn't note that in my Forums blogs (where I try to keep up with my maildays). This card is one of those two players from different teams type of card. The common thread for this one, besides sort of being local area rivals would be both players were sluggers who lead their teams in Home Runs and RBIs and were regular All-Stars for about 4 straight years. The Duo featured on the card Frank Howard and Boog Powell (Orioles).

2005 Upper Deck Classics: Classic Counterparts - CC-PH

Boog Powell Orioles and Frank Howard Senators #d 1696/1999

(Front and Back)

The lines on the front are not a weird scanner glitch the design of the card I think was going for a wood grain effect sort of. The areas where the team logos are on the front are where the "materials" version of these cards puts the silly "Game Used" jerseys or socks or whatever, apparently there are also signatures versions.